It's been rather busy at my desk lately, with lots going on, so I thought I'd pop in here and write some of it down!

The 1st of July was the official release date for my first young adult novel, Out of the Cages. It was rather surreal to hold that book in my hands after the long journey it took to reach publication.We held the official launch on the 7th July, at 7pm (Yep - 7 o'clock and the 7th of the 7th. I didn't mean to have such a 7ish event, but I did like that coincidence.)

The launch was attended by about 80 people and I was able to share some of the story of how I researched this novel and what I learned along the way. You can see some photos from the launch over at my Penny Jaye website.

Camp Max has been on tour and that's been great fun! I always love taking my books to schools and sharing my enthusiasm about stories with children. It's even better when I get to focus on just the one book for the whole session, it gives me (an the kids) a real opportunity to think about the issues and characters. And Camp Max is a great book for that.

In high school I used to call them 'thinks' - little bits of writing about whatever topic or issue I was mulling over at the time. These days I probably call them journal entries, or blog posts. Whatever the name, here's some of what I get when the penny drops, or doesn't, and I sit down to write...